SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Have you seen this squirrel?

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A San Bernardino flying squirrel clings to a tree after being released during live trapping research in the San Bernardino Mountains in 2009.

A young Luke Skywalker -- the name given to an orphaned San Bernardino flying squirrel -- fits into the palm of a hand in 2004. U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist Robin Eliason's family raised the squirrel after it was found in a cavity in a dead tree cut down from atop a power line.

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A San Bernardino flying squirrel hangs on a window screen at the house of U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist Robin Eliason in Fawnskin in 2004. Her family named the nocturnal squirrel Luke Skywalker after it was orphaned when a dead tree hanging on a power line was cut down.

If you’ve seen a flying squirrel soaring in Southern California, the U.S. Forest Service would like to hear from you.

San Bernardino National Forest wildlife biologist Robin Eliason is now taking reports from people who have spotted the rare creatures in an effort to expand knowledge about where they still exist.

Glaucomys sabrinus californicus, believed to be a subspecies of the northern flying squirrel, has only been reported in the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains.

No sightings of the nocturnal, often-elusive animal have been reported in the San Jacinto Mountains for about twenty years. Environmentalists and animal lovers fear the population in the San Bernardino Mountains is dwindling, too.

“The public outreach is just to see what people know and where they’re seeing them, and see if it helps enlighten any questions we have,” Eliason said Friday, April 24.

The animal is being considered for listing as an endangered or threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the Center for Biological Diversity sued last June.

The Southern California flying squirrel is one of few mammals that glide. They have big eyes, round ears and a furry membrane between front and hind legs to sail from tree to tree or from a tree to the ground for an average 60 to 100 feet, said Eliason.

Besides the fact that it flies, the brown-gray critter with a dark side stripe and white belly is hard to confuse with the Western gray squirrel, also a California native. The gray squirrel averages 18 to 20 inches, while the San Bernardino flying squirrel with its 5-inch body and 5-inch-long tail can fit into a person’s hand.

They’re most easily spotted in the evening. They like shady, dense canopy, nest in dead trees and snags, and are usually found in white firs, Jeffrey pines and black oaks starting at 4,000 feet, said Center for Biological Diversity Climate Science Director Shaye Wolf.

Climate change, urban development and removal of dead trees and snags may threaten the squirrel’s habitat or range, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service response to the environmental group’s 2010 petition seeking protection for the squirrel.

The Forest Service launched its appeal to the public last week after Eliason, who is based at Mountaintop Ranger Station in Big Bear Lake, heard from residents curious about a University of Arizona hair tube trap study of the squirrels in the aftermath of the 2007 Grass Valley Fire, she said.

She’s gotten more than 40 emails and phone calls from throughout range. Residents’ sightings will be added to maps and expand on forest service research done since the 1990s.

The data will be given to the wildlife service, which must decide on the listing by April 29, 2016.

Suzanne Hurt has written about everything from boxcar tramps and crooked politicians to surf kayaking, flash floods and the vanishing Borneo rainforest. She’s worked as a reporter at the legendary wire service City News Bureau of Chicago and daily newspapers, The Register-Guard and The Modesto Bee, after a stint as an editor. As a freelancer, she produced hard news and nature, science, adventure travel and extreme sports content, including multimedia. For The Press-Enterprise and Southern California News Group, Suzanne specializes in narrative storytelling, backed by extensive hard news experience, strict journalism standards and a master’s in literary nonfiction from the University of Oregon’s journalism school. She’s told the story of one person’s survival of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, traced a man’s path out of homelessness and recreated the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack in San Bernardino through first responders’ eyes. Also covering GA and the environment, she’s written about avalanche danger, canyoneering, snowshoeing, desert and waterfall hikes, cowboy movers, rescue divers, rabid bats, stealthy burros, the mother orange tree scientists won’t let die and the Jesus pancake.